Imagine, you’ve landed your dream assignment and you are finished with your last shift of the week and after a long nights sleep you are ready to go out and have some fun. You get all dressed up to go out and then it hits you. “I don’t know what to do.”

Connect with your friends and family from Facebook and Twitter to share where you’re going

Find new places and hotspots

Share your photos, recommendations and trips with friends

Get inspired to explore the world around you

Get rewards from local eateries, venues and stores

Keep a digital record your experiences

The fun stuff on Gowalla for travel nurses

As a Gowalla user you get the chance to earn Stamps, which are basically like virtual passport stamps on your Gowalla Passport.

You can also earn Pins, which are given to you to remind of you certain achievements you’ve made as a Gowalla user – like the first one I earned “Going Out” for installing Gowalla on my phone.

Don’t forget to click on Spots and Trips to easily explore new places to go that other people have discovered. There are trips made by organizations like National Geographic, USA TODAY, CNNMoney to explore as well as those made by users like you.

Here’s how you get started:

First you click sign up now – it is a free service and easy to use

You can either make an account (with basically just your email address and name) or connect with your Facebook page

If you choose to make an account you are then asked if you want to connect with Facebook to see if any of your Facebook friends have a Gowalla account, I sent one invite to see how it works – very easy

Then you complete your “Passport”

The last step is to add the app to your smartphone

Once you are logged in you are prompted do one of three things:

“Find and add your friends”

If you choose to find or add friends you can either choose to connect to and invite your contacts/friends from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail or invite them via email.

“Tell us about your favorite places”

If you choose this option you get the chance to give a wide range of places your “Highlight Designation” Including places like your favorite live music venue, your happy place, tourist trap, watering hole, etc. There are 37 different highlights for you to add.

“Download Gowalla for your phone”

Gowalla works best if you download it to your smart phone (but you don’t have to, however you can’t check in without it). If you choose to you can add it to an iPhone, Android powered phone, Blackberry or Palm.

Once you are logged in your Dashboard shows you:

How many Stamps you’ve earned

How many Pins you’ve earned

Links to see your:

Activity – Places you have checked in

Highlights – All your favorite places (see above)

Photos – Any photos you have taken and uploaded with your phone

Trips – Shows you any trips you have made, which you don’t have to actually have visited the places to add it to one of your Trips

Bookmarks – All the spots you have Bookmarked, which just means you really liked them and what to be able to find them again quickly

Items – Any Items you have been given, which you get randomly when you check in on your phone at places they have been “dropped” – they are things like a Milk Steamer, a Mickey Mouse Hat or a Slice of Pizza

On your Smartphone

On your cell phone is where you are able to check-in at places. It is really simple to do (once you download the Gowalla app). Every time you check in somewhere new you get a Stamp and on my first check in I also got an Item and two Pins.

Privacy and Frequency

As far as privacy options go you can easily change your settings so that only your friends can see your Passport, updates and places (I recommend this option along with being careful in choosing who your friends are for both safety and privacy concerns). You can also determine how often you get updates about your activity and your friend’s activity. You can find both of these options under the Settings link once you are logged in.

Conclusion about Gowalla for travel nurses

One of the best aspects of Gowalla for travel nurses is the ability to easily act as a journal for you that automatically tracks all the cool places you have gone and new things you have done during your assignments. So set up your account before you’re next assignment and give it a try.

My name is Jeff Long. I’m the Marketing Manager at Medical Solutions, one of the leading travel nursing companies. I have never been a nurse and am not a recruiter. I have worked at Medical Solutions for four years and think it is a great company that has a lot to offer nurses and allied health professionals interested in a travel career. I do post just a small sampling of travel nursing jobs from Medical Solutions, but mostly I write about travel nursing. On this site you will not be recruited on this blog (unless you specifically inquire about traveling with Medical Solutions then I will forward your info to a Recruiter). I understand that you are reading and/or commenting on this blog purely for informational purposes and I want you to enjoy that experience My job is to help you meet your career goals by sharing information, advice and the benefits of travel nursing with you.

Answers to “Ask a Travel Nurse” questions are written by David Morrison, RN, a nurse with two decades of travel experience, and the author of the Travel Nurse’s Bible. His writings have been
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